Community activist Seigler is first official 2024 candidate for Brevard County Commission
Dwight Seigler kicked off the 2024 election season for Brevard County Commission, becoming the first candidate to file paperwork to run for one of the three seats that will be up for grabs.
Seigler, a community activist from east Mims, will be running as a Republican for the District 1 County Commission seat in north Brevard now held by Rita Pritchett, a Republican who is the current County Commission chair and whose time as commissioner is coming to a close.
Pritchett cannot seek reelection in 2024 because of term limit rules that prevent a county commissioner from serving more than two consecutive four-year terms. Two other Republican commissioners also will be term-limited in 2024 ― John Tobia in District 3 and Vice Chair Kristine Zonka in District 5, both south Brevard districts.
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Tobia, the current District 3 commissioner, is a candidate for Brevard County supervisor of elections in 2024, and plans to challenge the current supervisor of elections, Tim Bobanic, in a Republican primary.
Seigler ran for the District 1 seat three times before ― twice as a Democrat and once as a no party affiliation candidate.
In 2012, Seigler received 4.65% of the vote as a no party affiliation candidate in the general election, trailing Democrat Robin Fisher (53.26%) and Republican Richard Ware (42.09%).
Seigler lost a Democratic primary in 2016 to Ron Taylor, with Seigler receiving 37.18% of the vote. Taylor then lost to Pritchett in the general election.
In 2020, Democrat Seigler lost to Republican Pritchett in the general election, getting 32.29% of the vote in the heavily Republican district.
Seigler, 64, is president of the East Mims Civic League, and retired in 2011 as a quality inspector for the space shuttle program.
2022 commission elections:Republican Goodson routs Smith, Feltner beats write-in candidate in County Commission races
Seigler said he decided to run as a Republican in the 2024 election because he was disillusioned with the local Democratic Party, including what he felt was the party's lack of support in his 2020 campaign. Plus, Seigler noted that the Democratic Party did not run candidates in the two County Commission races contested in 2022, even though there were no incumbents on the ballot in either race. Republicans won took both seats ― Tom Goodson in District 2 and Rob Feltner in District 4.
"I didn't see any traction with the Democratic Party," Seigler said.
Brevard Democratic Executive Committee Chair Pamela Castellana said Seigler "is a good man who cares for his home district deeply, and I have nothing but respect for him as a person."
But Castellana said she believes Seigler's criticism of the Democratic Party is unjustified. Castellana said the Democratic Party supported Seigler in his 2020 campaign, including helping gather signatures on candidate qualifying petitions and knocking on doors of voters in District 1.
But Castellana said that her party's strategy is not to aggressively recruit Democratic candidates for elections in districts in which Republican enrollment is significantly higher than Democratic enrollment.
These are the current political party registration figures in the five County Commission districts:
District 1: 45.8% Republican, 27.0% Democrat, 24.9% no party affiliation, 2.3% member of minor political party.
District 2: 43.6% Republican, 28.7% Democrat, 25.5% no party affiliation, 2.2% member of minor political party.
District 3: 38.3% Republican, 30.4% Democrat, 28.8% no party affiliation, 2.5% member of minor political party.
District 4: 46.2% Republican, 24.7% Democrat, 26.7% no party affiliation, 2.4% member of minor political party.
District 5: 39.1% Republican, 30.1% Democrat, 28.5% no party affiliation, 2.3% member of minor political party.
Castellana said Democratic Party has lined up a candidate to run in District 1 in 2024 and plans to announce that candidate within the next few months. The party also hopes to run candidates in Districts 3 and 5 in the 2024 election.
Seigler said he has not been satisfied with the work of Pritchett in District 1 or her Democratic predecessor, Fisher, who served two terms from 2008 to 2016, and was the last Democrat to be elected to the five-member County Commission. Seigler contends that they were not putting enough of a focus on lower-income and minority communities within the district.
"I'm adamant about having a nice, safe, clean community," Seigler said.
Among the issues Seigler said he will focus on in his campaign are reducing pollution into the Indian River Lagoon, improving public bus transportation, paving currently unpaved streets in the district, installing lighting along trail areas, and returning fluoride to drinking water in Mims. Pritchett in 2021 was able to persuade her fellow commissioners to vote to remove fluoride from Mims drinking water.
Seigler said he chose to begin his campaign so early to get a head start on the potential competition.
The filing allows candidates to begin raising money for their campaigns and, if they choose, to gather signatures on petitions that can enable them to avoid paying a qualifying fee.
For Seigler, running as a Republican could be an advantage, as there are 16,447 more registered Republicans than registered Democrats in the district, which stretches from Cocoa north to the Brevard/Volusia County line on the mainland. But it is likely that other Republican candidates will enter the race as well.
Brevard Republican Executive Committee Chair Rick Lacey said he expects several Republicans to seek each of the three County Commission seats being contested in 2024, partly because there will be no incumbents running.
"You'll see a lot of people interested in those positions," Lacey said. "I suspect there will be multiple candidates running."
Lacey noted that four Republicans competed in 2022 in both the District 2 and District 4 Republican primaries that Goodson and Feltner won.
The current salary of county commissioners is $60,272.98.
There are no announced candidates yet in Districts 3 or 5.
Contact Berman at [email protected], on Twitter at @bydaveberman and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dave.berman.54.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Dwight Seigler again seeks Brevard County Commission seat
